Custom vs Origin characters - Baldur's Gate 3

hey guys I've got a short but interesting discussion for you today and that is a discussion about origin characters well mainly B Gate 3 Origin characters I'm going to talk about what they are what makes them unique and how they compare to a custom character so if you haven't played bers Gate 3 yet or just haven't made up your mind about playing as An Origin character this video might just help you decide and yeah I know I'm probably late to the party with this topic but it's something I wanted to talk about so yeah what the hell so grab yourself a nice warm mug of hot chocolate and let's talk about custom characters and origin characters so for those of you that are unfamiliar what are origin characters origin characters in BK 3 and Divinity original sin 2 are playable characters with a set appearance and a predefined backstory they all have their own distinctive personality history in the world and a personal Quest or goal that they aim to achieve if you play as An Origin character you get to to experience the story from their perspective while still maintaining the autonomy over their actions I suppose you could compare playing as An Origin character to playing as an already established character like Max from Life of strange or geralt of Rivia from The Witcher the origin characters in Infinity original sin 2 are Los seil Eon Ben MZ Fain Beast and the red Prince and the origin characters in Bish Gate 3 are LEL shidow heart asarian Gail will carlac and the dark urge the dark urge is a bit of a special case though because they're more of an origin custom hybrid character and I won't really talk about them in this video because I am planning on making a full separate video about the dark urge at some point in the future I don't think I need to explain much about what a custom character is because the name pretty much speaks for itself but for the sake of completeness custom characters are completely customizable characters without any specific background so that we as a player can make them in whoever we want them to be they don't have any established history and their personality is completely up to us to determine so what are the benefits and drawbacks of playing as An Origin character versus a custom character to give a good perspective of why origin characters can be fun to play and offer unique experience I want to first talk about the positives and negatives of a custom character and why most people initially pick them for their playthrough the main benefit of playing as a custom character and likely also the main reason why a lot of people pick custom characters is that we can customize almost every aspect of the character a big part of this is done during character creation like our character's appearance but a part of it is done during the actual game as well if we want our character to be a tough fighter we can establish this during character creation and give them scars for example and we can then continue this narrative throughout the game by making choices and choosing dialogue options that fit this character fantasy like not backing away from a fight and choosing to tackle problems with Brute Force rather than clever words the custom character can be anyone that we want him to be whether that's a complete self-insert a better version of of ourselves or a completely madeup character we can give them a complete backstory their own personality and personal goals and we can roleplay them accordingly a custom character can also be a great way to introduce someone to the world and its lore playing a custom character on your first playthrough can really help you get familiar with the game's world and lets you experience everything from your own perspective it is up to us how our character feels and reacts to things that happen around them and the other characters they interact with while this is the case with an already existing character as well to a certain extent it tends to be easier with a custom character as they're usually the easiest to relate to because they are either a version of ourselves or a character we created the downside of this however is that most of it is only in our heads sure we can give them a customize appearance and we can show their morals and their personality through the actions we take in a game but their history thoughts personal struggles the nuances of their personality are all things the game cannot know you might imagine your character having strong feelings towards a certain character or a certain event in the story but this won't ever be acknowledged by the game or the other characters because it is all head Cannon this can cause our custom character to feel unimportant or disconnected from the story yes our character is making important choices but do they really feel like they're a part of the world common feedback for Divinity original sin 2 is that the custom character doesn't feel interesting enough due to them not having a personal Quest and having very little reactivity this causes the character to feel they're just moving through the world rather than actually living in it BK 3 does a much much better job at this and I can't really complain about the reactivity a custom character gets in this game because there is plenty but that doesn't change the fact that a lot of the more personal parts of your custom character are just in your head and will have to Be Imagined while you're playing that's just the nature of a blank slate custom character so what about origin characters well a big reason people want to play as An Origin character is because it offers a completely new perspective An Origin character will have their own Take On The World and the characters around them and you'll get quite a few special cut scenes and dialogue options that are exclusive to this character you can react to things in a way you think fits the character's personality but you are completely free to make your own choices the unique perspective of the origin characters also add to the replayability of these games every origin character is different and will also be able to interact to things differently so playing a say shadow heart for example will give you a different experience as when you play a scale the interactions with companions will also be different as a custom character we've seen how will and carlac interact with each other the first time they meet but if we are carlac our very first meeting with will will be a very different experience playing as the origin characters also gives us the opportunity to get to know them in a different way it is one thing to travel beside them and get to know them from our own perspective it is something else to be them when we play as An Origin character we hear their thoughts see their memories we know their past and how they feel about it by playing the origin character we truly get to know them and it helps us understand them better you can find out what it's like for a storian to be a vampire spawn and eventually having to bite a companion or for will to be bound to maora or for shenel heart to be a worshipper of sh and not having her Memories the great thing about experiencing An Origin character's backstory this way is that we know their secret because it is our secret and we can choose whether or not we want to reveal this to the rest of the group and when we want to do that this leads to even more special interactions and reactivity from the other characters that are unique to the origin character that you're playing and the fact that they are so defined and that they have secrets and Back stories that are being acknowledged by the game makes them feel like they truly belong in the world and that they are a part of it which is just that little extra thing players might be looking for when playing a game like divinity original sin 2 or balers Gate 3 now if I were to talk about the dark urch in this video I would say that I think they are the perfect solution to this problem with the custom characters lack of real backstory and disconnected world and I really want to talk about it but I'm going to have to save it for another time so anyway moving on of course there are a few downsides to the origin characters as well the main thing is that it is not your character you might have the autonomy over their actions but their appearance backstory and initial personality was still created by someone else the choices you make might not necessarily align with what the character would do and so you might end up making a choice that fits the character's personality but not necessarily liking the outcome of it because it's just not something you would do people like to play as characters they can easily identify with and if they're not able to do that because the character's personality is too different from their own it can cause them to feel disconnected from the character and not enjoy the experience as much playing as a totally different character and putting yourself in their shoes and thinking about what they would do in a situation can be a lot of fun but it's definitely not everyone's cup of tea another minor drawback but nevertheless a drawback is that when you play as a certain origin character you will miss out on having them around as a companion and you'll also miss out on most of their voice acting the appearances of origin characters could be changed in Doss 2 but this is not the case in B Skate 3 even if you play as one of them so if there is something you don't like about a certain character's appearance you're just going to have to roll with it as for my opinion well I always prefer playing as a custom character I just like creating characters and being able to customize them in a way that I want I enjoy making Back stories for them and I like thinking about how my characters feel about the people they meet and the things that happen to them first playthroughs are always special to me so the first character I create in a game is almost always a version of me all of my first characters have a lot of my personal traits some I gave back stories with experiences similar to my own and some are similar to me in appearance I was 18 when I first played Dragon Age Origins and with the warden being around 18 years old I decided to base my Canon warden's personality on my own personality when I was that age so it's not a complete self-insert but the character's got a big part of me if that makes sense I always put so much thought and effort into my characters to the point that I should probably write it down at some point because I just can't keep up with it anymore but I'm going off topic anyway point is that when it comes to choosing between playing An Origin character and a custom one I am Teem custom character all the way with that said though the issues with a blank slate character do bother me sometimes I understand that details about a custom character's background are intentionally kept vague or sometimes completely absent so that we are able to fill in the blanks ourselves but I do admit that sometimes it would be nice to talk to Companions about ourselves and our background we are usually the ones that ask our companions all sorts of questions about who they are and where they're from and I wish we got some more opportunities to let our custom character talk about their history or Express how they feel about things or talk about the things they might struggle with I understand that this might be hard to do especially because you don't want to mess with people's head cannons for their character but I believe it can be done in a proper way in Dragon's Origins for example Morgan at some point asks you about your mother and you can give a few different answers and Alistair asks you about what you think of the other Companions and you can give him your opinion it's interactions like these that add just a little bit of extra flavor to your character and it makes them feel more like an actual character as for bers Gate 3 I have recently started a playthrough as a dark urge and I am already noticing that the dark urg's mysterious background is making my playthrough a lot more interesting I think I'm going to wait and see how the dark urg story plays out but from everything I've seen so far and everything I've heard I might make the dark urge my Cannon but we'll see I also planning on doing some playthroughs as other origin characters because I'm very curious about some of the unique interactions but I think overall for most other games custume character is still my go-to ultimately it's all up to you and your personal preference I just wanted to make this video because I enjoy talking about things like this and this video might just help someone decide what to do for their playthrough but honestly just pick whatever you like just pick whatever you think you enjoy the most and have fun with it cuz that's what's most important anyway thank you so much for watching if you like this video let me know by liking this video or leave a comment and let me know if you prefer to play as An Origin character or a custom character and why if you want to support the channel check out my Patron or join my Discord server and let's chat about origin characters sometimes time that's it for now though thanks again for watching and I hope to see you on the next one

Channel: Lisa plays Games

Views: 25,329

Keywords: Custom vs origin characters, Origin vs custom characters, Origin characters Baldur's Gate 3, Custom characters Baldur's Gate 3, Baldur's Gate 3, Divinity Original Sin 2, Lisa plays Games, Lisa plays Games Video game discussions, Custom vs Origin characters - Baldur's Gate 3

Id: xvmoP1aA64Q

Length: 11min 57sec (717 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 12 2023